Social Selling 3 Comments

How To Master Network Sales Without Being Awkward

Mastering network sales is all about trust. When starting a new venture, it’s tough to get your first customers because you don’t have any credentials to help build trust.

People judge by historical performance, but with nothing to show in your portfolio or any sign of a track record, it’s really hard to make people trust you with their money.

Anyone who was struggling to find their first job without previous experience knows this pain.

Unless you’re this guy… (which you’re not)

What Is Network Sales?

A sales methodology in which salespeople are encouraged to build leads by tapping into their personal and professional networks to find qualified leads by means of referrals. In this method, there are two types of people to look for: potential leads, and well connected individuals who can introduce you to potential leads.

Network Sales Is About Trust, So Start With People Who Already Trust You

That’s why approaching your nearest network is the best way to earn your first batch of customers.

You don’t have to build trust with people who already trust you, that’s why it’s easiest to start with them.

I’ve been using network sales with a lot of success at the beginning of RightHello.

The beauty of it all? I still have friends I can go for a beer with, some of whom are my customers.

I wanted to share my answers for a few important questions I asked myself before starting network sales.

1) Who Should I Approach?

You should not bother people that have nothing to do with the business you are in. It’s a simple rule, but people often go through their whole network and just send the same one email to everyone. That’s super-awkward.

…as long as you don’t spam my mailbox.

Talk to everyone you know that is connected in some way to what you do. You don’t want to bother people that don’t even understand your company or can’t benefit from it somehow.

Depending on the size of your network it could be 10 or 100 people. The smaller your list is, the more personal you should get as every one of them counts – in matter of potential deal, feedback, and any other people they could introduce you to.

Think about it this way – if you can provide value, and you don’t offer any to your buddies, you aren’t a good friend.

Imagine if Steve Jobs didn’t want to sell Steve Wozniak an iPod? Silly, isn’t it? Yet I still see many (even successful) founders who don’t want to approach their friends because they’re scared to cripple the relationship.

…I bet he’d agree

2) How Well Should I Know Someone Before Approaching Them?

Don’t overthink whether you know somebody well enough to approach them. If they’re a part of your social media network, they somehow opted-in to having updates from you sometimes.

I’m talking from the perspective of an entrepreneur – every venture is a part of my life and my network totally understands that.

From my experience, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve met somebody once, or have known somebody since childhood- If they fit the ideal customer profile, it’s worth trying.

3) How Do I Talk To Them?

Network sales is a fairly straightforward process. You know you want them to become customers, but you still don’t know if your product or service will work for them.

The first step is getting honest feedback from your prospect – something that’s hard to get from someone you don’t know. What I always do here is ask for feedback with the intent to revisit them as a future customer.

There’s an overused line that people always add when asking for feedback:

“I’m not looking to sell anything, but since you have so much expertise in… blah blah blah”.

That’s bullshit. Sure, get feedback first, but don’t pretend you don’t want them to be your customer if you know you can add value. In my opinion, people see through that from miles away.

Here are two examples of e-mails I used to approach my network:

Could-Be Customers:

“Hey {{first_name}},

As you may know I recently started my new venture – RightHello, a tool for building high quality leads. We are just about to release a private beta.

I think this is something you might find useful and I would like to show you what we have. Your feedback would be extremely valuable 🙂

Are you free to grab a coffee and talk it over this week?”

Well-Connected, Asking For An Intro:

“Hey {{first_name}},

As you may know I recently started my new venture – RightHello, a tool for building high quality leads. We are just about to release a private beta.

I’m looking for early adopters to get first feedback – ideally people doing sales in IT. As you have a huge network I thought that you might know someone we could approach. I’d be in your debt if you could check your network for somebody to introduce me to :)”

Secondly, don’t make promises you can’t keep. In normal sales, if you don’t deliver, you only risk your business relationship.

In network sales, people will trust you for who you are, so you are risking your friendship.

It could go really bad if you’re not honest. But if you are – there is 99% chance you’ll be okay.

…As long as you’re honest.

One of my first customers was a very close friend. Even though we had our problems – honesty and openness maintained our business and personal relationship. He is still a customer, and we still have a beer from time to time.

5) Ask For Introductions

Normally it’s impossible to get a referral from a lead, and it’s not easy to get one from a client. But when you are starting from scratch it works totally different.

You are an entrepreneur and you are trying to change the world in someway – that’s a kinda romantic thing to do and people will want to help you.

At the start you’re mostly looking for feedback. You don’t need to prove anything, you’re just asking for opinions. In the more mature stage, it’s impossible to use this leverage, so better do it now 🙂

Just ask everyone you talk with for a few introductions. If you get introductions, ask them for more introductions. Trust me, it works in 90% of cases.

6) Be Natural

Asking for help makes everyone feel awkward. But when people see your hard work supporters come naturally. I was surprised at how much help I got along the way “just because it’s cool”

Be honest, try to do your best – and always keep your promises. This way you approach your network without feeling bad about it – after all, it is a mutual favor.